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INTERVIEW: Noel Fitzpatrick talks charity work, receiving negative feedback on The Supervet and what to expect in series 9

The man who astonished viewers with his ground-breaking and innovative veterinary practices, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, is back tonight for a brand new series of The Supervet. The hugely popular series… read more

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INTERVIEW: Noel Fitzpatrick talks charity work, receiving negative feedback on The Supervet and what to expect in series 9

The man who astonished viewers with his ground-breaking and innovative veterinary practices, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, is back tonight for a brand new series of The Supervet.

The hugely popular series sees ‘bionic vet’ Noel and his team provide cutting-edge care and compassionate support for both animals and their human families and series nine promises to document some of the most emotional and technically challenging cases to date.

We sat down with The Supervet himself to discuss everything to do with the Channel 4 series.

From the very beginning of our chat, Noel’s love for what he does is abundantly clear. Animal welfare has been a passion of his since his early years growing up on a farm in Ballyfin, Co. Laois, and the famous vet wasted no time in jumping straight in with his main objective for the show.

“It’s very important people know the reason I do it [the show], not the reason they think I do it,” he tells us.

“We are supposed to be an advocate for hope. That’s what we are supposed to do with this show. I never wanted to make a show about science. It’s very important that we do show that. But it’s more important that we show the love behind it.”

When asked what kind of changes we should expect to see in the new series, Noel replies: “The biggest single thing that we’re going to do better in this next run than we’ve ever done before is show failure.

“And that’s really important to me because I am not evangelical about this. And I am not self-congratulatory. I’m only as good as the operation as I did last night.

“Ultimately I will show it as raw as it can be. This isn’t Tattoo Fixers. These people are in crisis.”

One of this season’s most complex surgeries will come in the form of four tiny hedgehogs, each of whom is brought before Noel with a broken left hind leg. Operating on a minute scale, viewers will witness Noel perform back-to-back surgery in order to reconstruct their tiny tibias in the hope that they can be returned to the wild.

Noel recalled that day in the surgery, remarking: “Bizarrely, one Monday night they all decided to cross the road from the left-hand side! How bizarre is that? They all had broken left tibias!”

The 49-year-old did not seem fazed by having to make these adjustments in terms of scale, however, and when we asked if he found operations of this nature difficult, he replied: “No, not really. I’ve operated on hamsters, I’ve operated on frogs, I’ve operated on small lizards. What’s hard is that it’s somebody’s friend.

“I don’t think in terms of size. I think in terms of ‘are we doing the right thing?’”

As widely adored as The Supervet is, Noel admits that he is used to receiving negative feedback from the show: “I think it’s human nature to build people up and knock them back down.

“The veterinary profession find this show difficult sometimes because they think that possibly I’m blowing my own ego. And that’s not true, but it’s difficult to explain to people that the reason I do it is to try and be a proper advocate for the animals and also to get a foundation or platform for the Humanimal Trust.”

Noel has been instrumental in bringing the concept of One Medicine to the fore in the UK, a concept which is at the heart of the charity he founded. The Humanimal Trust is the first charity of its kind in Britain and aims to establish a platform for the cross-pollination of expertise and ideas between veterinary and human medicine for the benefit of all living creatures.

Noel explains: “Animals have given us medicine and implants for so long but we never give it back. Almost no drug that you have and almost no implant that you have in your body has not been tested on an animal. Almost 5,000 dogs in the United Kingdom lose their life every year giving you drugs and implants.

“Now I’m not saying you can’t have safe drugs and implants. What I’m saying is that it’s silly not to have stem cells, cancer drugs and implants developed for humans and animals at the same time. Not just one for the benefit of the other.

“The Humanimal Trust is about funding research which helps the animal as well as the human.”

Season nine of The Supervet kicks off tonight at 8pm with the case of a labradoodle named Mitzi, who may have suffered serious nerve damage after being involved in a nasty road accident. With Mitzi’s owners fearing the worst, Noel discusses the options available for their beloved pet.

Season nine of The Supervet begins tonight (Thursday April 20) at 8pm on Channel 4.

INTERVIEW: Coronation Street’s Paula Lane opens up about Kylie’s death

The tragic fate of Coronation Street‘s Kylie Platt is a secret no longer, with ITV announcing that the character’s final episodes will air in the week commencing Monday July 11th. Actress Paula… read more

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INTERVIEW: Coronation Street’s Paula Lane opens up about Kylie’s death

The tragic fate of Coronation Street‘s Kylie Platt is a secret no longer, with ITV announcing that the character’s final episodes will air in the week commencing Monday July 11th. Actress Paula Lane has now spoken for the first time about her decision to leave Corrie, from how she felt when she was told Kylie would die, to what her ideal role would be now that she’s left the long running drama. Here’s what she had to tell us:

What made you decide to leave?

“I have made no secret of the fact that I never saw myself being in a long running drama for the rest of my career. I was only contracted for 6 months and ended up staying six years. Six years is a nice amount of time to make an impact, but not be typecast. I was very conscious of that; time goes so fast in soap, as we film ahead. I thought I am going to have to run and jump and see that decision through.”

Were you surprised to be told she was being killed off?

“I knew it was a possibility; they have free reign to do what they want with your character once you make that decision to leave, and sometimes, when it is a much loved character, they want to go for a big impactful exit. I am more than happy with the exit, and creatively I am excited to play it and see people’s reaction.”

How did they tell you?

“Kieran Roberts the executive producer me sat down explained how and why. I was excited. You don’t get to have that kind of exit everyday, and people will really remember it, so I am really pleased. Hopefully it will leave the audience wanting more. Of course it is nice to have the door open, it gives you a kind of safety net, but I hope I can go on to do other things. This is a great spring board, I feel like I have been given so much [of an] opportunity here, and I am so grateful for that.”

Has that been tricky keeping the secret?

“My family and friends kind of know not to ask, but I have a very tight circle of people who know. It is great that we are keeping the details of how she dies a secret though.”

What was Jack’s reaction?

“He was very laid back about it, but it is heartbreaking really because I could have seen them last a lifetime together. It is hard when you have someone you have worked with for six years turn round and say ‘I am going and I won’t ever be coming back.’”

Will you take any mementoes?

“No, I don’t think so. I think it has got to be clean break.”

How is Kylie doing in the lead up to this?

“The family are still dealing with the aftermath of the body being discovered, Kylie is struggling with the fact that an innocent man’s name has been trashed, and that David is alright with that. She feels really guilty and also is worried about Max and how he is coping with it all.

“Gail doesn’t want to be in the annex any more, Gail tries to get Kylie and David to move in saying it could be a love nest, Kylie quickly realises it is not, it doesn’t sit well with her, she tries to make it her own by buying all these fluffy cushions and revamping it and it doesn’t feel right.

“Then she finds out that Max is getting a hard time from the other kids so she has this great idea that they should start a new life and go off to Barbados.

“What is sad is that at this point we start to see the old Kylie and David come back as they plan their new life together and that is sad because we all know what’s coming!”

What would your dream job be?

“I loved Marcella, loved the style, really gritty. ITV has got some great dramas on at the minute, so you’ll just have to see. Of course it is easy to say I would love to do something completely different from Corrie like a period drama, or sci-fi. And I would love to do theatre as well.“

What’s been your favourite storyline?

“It’s hard to just pick one! I loved spending time with Katherine Kelly and being in her shadow kind of thing when I started at Corrie. Then things got a bit more serious and Kylie slept with Nick, and we had the ‘Is the baby Nick or David’s?’ thing. I’ve loved everything. I can’t really pinpoint one moment. “

What will you miss the most and the least?

“I won’t miss the many costume changes – it’s like going on a shopping spree everyday but without the end product. You know, you’re just constantly trying on clothes. I would never want the end product, either. I won’t miss the early starts, the drive. But I will miss the people, the buzz on set when a take goes well… We have so little time to shoot the scenes – when it just works, you go ‘Wow!’ and it feels great that you’ve managed to achieve it. Most things I’ll miss, I really will.”

Is Kylie’s death after killing Callum the ultimate soap justice?

“I have to admit that when they made Kylie a murderer I did sort of think, ‘This means something quite big now.’ It does change things for the character when they commit a big crime.”

Did that have any bearing on your decision to go?

“I think it just reinforced the fact that they can do whatever they want to a character. And I still wanted her to be believable. There were so many parts of her that I’d played that I thought it was time for me to wrap it up.”

As far as Kylie’s relationship with David is concerned, is this the best way for her to leave?

“Yes – the family now get a clear-cut end. She’ll forever be in David’s heart obviously, but one of the best ways for her to go is not by choice. David has to try and move on if she’s dead, whereas if she had been in prison or had run away, he would always be waiting for her. It will be a long process but will give him some great drama.”

Do you think David will go off the rails after Kylie’s death?

“Probably. It’ll catapult him into a new lease of life. The way she goes will lead to so much for Jack to be able play.”

Is it one of the most shocking deaths in Corrie history?

“Yes – Without a doubt. I’m not just saying this because I’m involved, but I don’t think I’ve ever read an ending like it. The audience are going to get a real sense of shock and surprise – how a sudden death is. They’re going to feel those emotions.”

How are you feeling about having to play dead?

“It is a bit weird. I just hope my eyes don’t start flickering! I’ve never done it before, so I don’t know. I’ve not practiced staying very still or anything. That’s what I mean about being given a storyline like this. It’s a new avenue, something different.”

What’s been your proudest Corrie moment?

“Without a doubt the live episode. The audience was completely oblivious to what me and Jack were doing logistically. In between scenes we were running around the set with about 30 seconds to spare. It was crazy. And then all those millions of people watching. It was an unbelievable feeling.”

Make sure to watch Coronation Street on Mondays (7.30pm and 8.30pm), Wednesdays (7.30pm) and Fridays (7.30pm and 8.30pm) on ITV.

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INTERVIEW: Dr Suzannah Lipscomb on new documentary ‘Hidden Killers of the Post-War Home’

The years after the fall of Nazi Germany saw a revolutionary period of change across the globe, particularly in Britain. The subsequent economic recovery in Europe saw more individuals than ever before define themselves as middle class and enjoy the luxuries that status and money brought with it – but few recognised the dangers they had brought into their homes.

In new documentary ‘Hidden Killers of the Post-War Home’, Dr Suzannah Lipscomb uncovers the household dangers that caught families of the 1950s unaware – to drastic consequences. We met up with historian, author and television presenter to talk about the new documentary, which airs on BBC Four this Wednesday, May 25 at 8pm.

Why did you choose the post-war period?

There were lots of periods we’d like to look at but this one felt quite compelling because the 50s is such a pivotal decade of change – after the drabness of war, and the removal of rations, and the brightness and colour of affluence and optimism. Introducing all these [new] things into the home, it’s a really domestic period. And yet many of those things are dangerous – it was perfect for our series basically.

Were you surprised how many killers in the home there were in a more modern period than your other shows?

Yes, absolutely! The 50s house that we’re using is a very beautiful house, but it does remind me very much the houses of my grandparents. I think most people will be familiar with a house like this, and the fact that there are quite so many things that are so dangerous is astonishing actually. In fact, what’s most worrying about it is that there are several strands where I think these things remain dangerous, so in some ways it’s a sort of health and safety programme.

It’s actually quite striking how many of the things that effected families in the 1950s are still dangerous, for example preparing chicken…

I’ve been washing my hands a lot. There’s nothing like seeing the bacteria on those petri dishes to make you really convinced to the value of washing your hands!

Do you think new things seemed less dangerous which actually made them more dangerous? For example, in the old days people would be aware of dangers like fire.

Absolutely. I think the appearance of modernity is deceptive. Even with things like the sofas: [a family buys a] beautiful new sofa, and then it’s made of material that’s flammable. I think the appearance of being brilliantly modern makes you think that they’re safe.
Was there also trust in the manufacturer as well?

Advertising has been around since the Victorian period but this is the age where you have the first advertising on television. It’s a booming age of advertising and it’s very simplistic from our point of view when we look back at it – “Buy this, it’s good!”

I never like to say about past periods that they’re more gullible than us, because I think we’re very gullible to all sorts of things – I believe it when the shampoo says it’s going to do XY and Z for my hair, I have no idea – I think they’re just going along with what they’re told.

Do you think the manufacturers should have taken more responsibility?

One of the things that has to be said for the 50s is that consumers start demanding responsibility from the manufacturers. It was when Which? magazine started and we have a consumer association starting, so there is a sense that they’re kind of wising up to requiring that from a manufacturer, but I suppose we’re all kind of a bit gullible about new things.

Whenever we do this we say what are they going to say about us? Is it going to be the WiFi? “Did you know that they live within WiFi all the time?” “Do you know they held mobile phones right up to their heads – and slept with them next to them?”

Did anything shock you more than anything else?

When we went to look at those chemistry sets, my word! It was just extraordinary what people – boys mainly – could do in the safety of their own bedrooms.

It’s very sobering, isn’t it? Because it is fun to watch but then you also reveal the consequences.

It’s an interesting tone with these programmes, because we’re moving from things that are actually genuinely funny – because it’s absolutely ridiculous – to fatalities and trying to keep those two things [separate]. We want to have a sense of fun and not be too earnest because otherwise it does become a health and safety programme, but actually realising that these things are important and real and that there were consequences.

Is it most fun for you doing the experiments?

The experiments are really fun for me because what’s really different about this is that we were originally commissioned through a science stream at BBC Four, which is unusual because I’m a historian and so it’s very science-heavy here. And obviously [despite] what I might know and think and read up about the period, I generally don’t know anything about science really. I stopped science at GCSE. So whenever I go and meet these scientists, I am being absolutely dazzled by new information and I think that works in TV terms because I don’t have to go along and pretend to not know.

How would you sell this show to someone who wasn’t a fan of history?

I’d say this is an astonishing story of these deadly dangers in the home that are in living memory and actually many of them still in the house. So frankly, it’s kind of must see really because who knows what you might be putting yourself in danger of. And also we blow things up.

Watch Dr Suzannah Lipscomb in new Hidden Killers of the Post-War Home on Wednesday, May 25 at 8pm on BBC Four.

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Mark Rylance “more nervous at the BAFTAs than the Oscars” – our behind the scenes interview

Mark Rylance was arguably the biggest winner at the BAFTA TV Awards last night (May 8th 2016), taking home both the award for best actor and best drama series for acclaimed BBC Two historical drama Wolf Hall. It’s been a big year for Rylance, who also picked up an Academy Award and BAFTA Film Award for his role in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War blockbuster, Bridge of Spies. We had the absolute joy of catching up with the humble actor backstage after his big wins. Here’s what he had to say about the Oscars, the BBC, and Harry Styles’s hair…

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Congratulations on your double win for Wolf Hall. How do you feel?

Mark Rylance: “I have to say, I was more nervous tonight in front of this group of people – many of whom are friends – than I was at the Academy Awards, or any of the other awards I’ve been at. Just because of the quality here, of television acting and all the different skills that we saw tonight, I really thought this is incredible.”

TV drama is in a pretty incredible place right now.

“It is. And it’s people who are newscasters, and people who film animals, and so many different people… It’s so very diverse, and yet [tonight] it felt like a room of a community, much more than the Academy Awards, where it felt like people were often in different little production companies and vying against each other. Here there’s a real sense of community in the television world.”

“There’s a sense of the BBC being the mothership of the whole profession” – Mark Rylance

Do you think the sense of community you speak of has something to do with people getting behind the BBC tonight?

“I think it is. I certainly learned how to act in front of a camera with the BBC, and all my work in front of cameras is due to that training. I wasn’t trained at RADA to act in front of a camera, I learned by being taught by people on the floor at the BBC. There’s a sense of her being the mothership of the whole profession. So I hope things will get better.”

This is your second BAFTA this year – one for TV and one for film. How does that feel?

“Yes, that’s right! It feels like it’s an extraordinary time in my life. I’ve met so many people on the street since we made Wolf Hall who came up to me and talked to me about it, in Canada and America as well, that I thought we might be celebrated. I was surprised to be so celebrated for Bridge of Spies, which seemed like a small part, and a quiet part, but I think it’s maybe that a lot of people had not seen me before, or something like that. It’s always a surprise when you win, though. You’re mostly so worried about what you’re going to say, which I was not very prepared for tonight!”

You’ve got Christopher Nolan’s World War II action-drama Dunkirk coming up; have you started filming it yet, and have you already met Harry Styles?

“We haven’t started filming yet, and I haven’t met Harry Styles yet, no! But my little eleven year old niece has taken a great interest in my profession suddenly, and I think it’s because of Harry Styles. [She] showed me a video of him and yes, he has very very nice hair.”

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She’s arguably the most beloved TV actress in the country right now, so it was really no surprise that Scott and Bailey star Suranne Jones would win the BAFTA TV Award for Best Leading Actress for her work in the remarkable BBC One drama, Doctor Foster. We had the pleasure of speaking to the jubilant Suranne as she came off the stage with her shiny new trophy. Here’s what she had to tell us about Doctor Foster‘s success, what we can expect from season two, and whether we might be seeing her on the West End stage any time soon.

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Were you aware when you first signed on to Doctor Foster that it would become such a phenomenon?

Suranne Jones: “Well Mike Bartlett was attached, so I thought it might be special, and then I went to speak to Drama Republic and Mike about what I felt about the script, and immediately I thought: ‘Oh, you’re a real collaborative team! You want to know what my feelings are as the woman that’s going to play the character’. Mike wanted to meet someone before he started to write for them, and then we struck up a great relationship. He met with me, talked about the episodes, and then he would do rewrites after our meetings, which doesn’t [usually] happen! So I felt very much a part of the team.

“I didn’t know whether an audience would come to a drama about affairs, and I just felt like it might be a niche programme that people wouldn’t get behind. Well, now I see that it’s a fascinating programme, but at the time I didn’t think that people wouldn’t come to it. And they did, in droves!”

So when did you become aware that you had such a big hit on your hands?

“It was a slow burner, so by episode three people were stopping me on the street, and people were telling me that it was ‘trending’. I’m so rubbish with technology that it was my husband who had to tell me about Twitter, because I’m not on it. Then I really started to think ‘Wow, this is something big’! By the time the finale came, I started to watch it in a different way. I don’t like to watch my things, but by the end of the finale I got behind the characters in a [more] removed way than I was before. That was quite exciting, because I don’t watch my programmes like that. But because everyone else got behind it, I did.”

Suranne plays Gemma Foster, a GP whose life is torn apart when she learns of her husband’s affair.

What stage is season two of Doctor Foster at right now?

“I’m associate producing this time, so I’m very much a part of it, and I think that because we were a great team the first time around, they’ve allowed me to do that, which is wonderful. Again, that doesn’t really happen for actors, so I thank Drama Republic and the BBC for that. I’ve read episode one, and I’m due episode two and three this week coming! At first I didn’t know whether there should be a series two, but Mike always wanted to write the aftermath of a divorce, which I think is never shown on TV in drama, because people break up, have a divorce, and then that’s the end of the show. Now, we get to look at what actually happens when two people have to live with each other, and parent a child. It’s messy!”

“I’m quite emotional, because I’ve just had a child, so that doesn’t really help! But I’m absolutely thrilled, and still in shock” – Suranne Jones

How has having a child influenced your approach to acting?

“I think I’ll find out! Me and my husband were watching Ruth Madeley’s clip [from Don’t Take My Baby], and we both started to tear up, because I guess things do affect you in a different way. What’s wonderful about taking some time off with my family is that I get to have a new life experience, which I think actors should have all the time. Working solidly, you don’t get those. So I’ll find out what all this new ‘mummyness’ will bring to my role!”

Will we be seeing you back on the West End stage any time soon?

“Actually, a brilliant company had a conversation and asked me what I would like to do, so we’re actually just checking out some other actresses for something next year, hopefully. Fingers crossed!”

INTERVIEW: Steve Backshall on new series Fierce and whether Strictly was scarier than the world’s most dangerous animals

BAFTA Award winning TV naturalist Steve Backshall is a household name and national treasure, thanks to his work in children’s television. A generation of children grew up sharing Backshall’s… read more

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INTERVIEW: Steve Backshall on new series Fierce and whether Strictly was scarier than the world’s most dangerous animals

BAFTA Award winning TV naturalist Steve Backshall is a household name and national treasure, thanks to his work in children’s television. A generation of children grew up sharing Backshall’s infectious enthusiasm for animals, and now he’s back to make his mark on adults watching ITV at prime time this Tuesday.

In Fierce, Backshall will explore the world in search of some of the planet’s fiercest animals. In six epic adventures to Guyana, Mexico, Namibia, Indonesia, Australia and South Africa, he’ll be getting up close and personal with the world’s most venomous snake, the extraordinary Komodo Dragon and even the notorious honey badger.

We were lucky enough to sit down for a chat with Backshall in London ahead of the premiere of Fierce this Tuesday at 8pm, in which we talked about Fierce, Britain’s fear of the wild and whether he thought the Strictly judges were scarier than the planet’s more fearsome animals.

We’ve seen the Fierce and it looks pretty tough. How dangerous is it filming the show, especially during the night shoots?

A lot of what I do is try to make sure that’s it’s not dangerous. I’ve been working with animals for a long, long time and I know what the limits are and I try not to push those limits. I try to stay well within them – that’s the aim. And the crews that I’m used to dealing with are very much the same – they work with wildlife too, so we know what the rules are, we know what the limits are.

I’d say a really really hefty portion of what I do is working at night because in a lot of environments that’s where everything comes to life. That’s when everything gets up and starts moving around and starts going out and hunting. There are different challenges, but not necessarily different dangers.

How dangerous is it for the actual people living in those regions themselves would you say?

This is very very difficult for a British audience to come to terms with and it’s something I really hope people get out of these programmes. We have this overpowering fear of the wild. Going to places where people live with crocodiles in the river at the bottom of their garden, where they live with the most venomous snakes, the most venomous spiders – people don’t think that way. They have a totally different view of nature and wildlife than we do, particularly living in cities.

The statistics show there is no comparison: if you go a place where there are 5-metre-long crocodiles in every river, it is nothing like as dangerous as the cars are on the streets of London. The people that live there know that. They know what the limits are, they know what the rules are, they know how to live within those limits and those rules and they see it as kind of an inevitable consequence of living where they do. It’s quite refreshing.

We meet people who have been bitten, who have been stung, and then at the end of it are just kind of like, ok well I’ll make sure I don’t do that again. They don’t hate the animals, they don’t want to destroy them or get rid of them. They don’t overstate or overemphasise their danger, like we do here in this country. You know if someone gets bitten by a false widow spider and all of a sudden it hits the headlines – this venomous spider’s going to leave its web and savage us and your arms are going to fall off – you know, a lot of that is to do with the fact that we’ve become so detached from nature here. We’ve lost sense of what the reality of it is.

Are you ever scared for your life on expeditions?

Yeah, lots, but it’s very rarely from animals. People expect that they’re the things that are going to be most frightening to us – it really isn’t. It’s things like rock fall, it’s things like weather, it’s very often people. Coming back from a big expedition going to a big city and being held up at gunpoint. Having a car crash or being caught in a riot. People are so much more frightening than animals could ever be.

Where was your favourite place to visit on Fierce?

My favourite one was Indonesia. We went to the Komodo National Park, which is a really special place both above and below the water. Below the seas you have this extraordinary abundance of marine life [with] fabulous diversity. Many of the creatures there – despite the fact I’ve probably filmed there six or seven times – I’d never seen before. On land, you’ve got the world’s largest lizard, this three metre long dinosaur just walking up and down the beaches. It’s an incredible place.

You do a lot of travelling on the show – it must be exhausting. Do you actually stay out in the wild?

Of course. So for example with the Guyana programme, there’s this one big city in Guyana called Georgetown and then it was a chartered flight of several hours, and then a river journey of nine hours to get to where our base camp was. You can’t come back and go to a hotel at night, because that would be three hours of travel.

What’s your favourite animal experience this series?

I would say my favourite animal experience on this series was we came across a king cobra in the act of eating another snake. Absolutely unbelievable. We sat and watched for two hours while this huge venomous snake killed and then ate whole another snake. That’s a once in a lifetime thing.

Talking about the animals you’ve seen on this series, the honey badger has got this recent internet fame for being crazy. Would you say that’s justified?

Yeah, god absolutely. The Guinness Book of Animal Records lists the honey badger as being the most aggressive animal on the planet. This is a creature that’s no bigger than our own badger in this country, but has been seen driving lions away from their prey just purely through their attitude. I’m not suggesting for a millisecond that they’re dangerous to us as human beings, of course they’re not, but in their world it is the fiercest animal out there.

What animal would you say was the fiercest in Britain?

Good question. The stoat is in the same family as the honey badger and has the ability to take on a rabbit that might be three or four times it’s weight, kill it and then drag it away over logs and stones and sometimes over small walls and things. They are absolutely fierce.

What tips would you give to those who would like to do what you do?

What I would do is start off by studying science. I would study biology, I would go on to study marine biology or zoology at university. I would volunteer and work for every wildlife and conservation charity you can get hold of, like go and work for your local wildlife refuge.

More than anything it’s a state of mind, it’s a state of inquisitiveness about wanting to find out everything about what you see outside in the natural world. It’s about going for a walk and hearing a birdsong and thinking what bird made that and what is it saying? It’s about seeing an animal you haven’t seen before and going back and finding out everything about it. That is the main key I think to getting to do something like what I do.

What was more scary, coming face to face with scary animals on Fierce or having to face the judges on Strictly Come Dancing?

The first week of Strictly was quite scary, because I’d never danced a step before and I didn’t know if I was genuinely going to humiliate myself in front of every person I’d ever met, because it’s a big show – it has a huge viewing in this country. After the first week, when I knew where I was going to be – I knew I wasn’t going to be one of the ones that was competing to win it, I knew I wasn’t going to be one of the people who was out in ignominy in week two – I enjoyed it. It was good fun. So it certainly wasn’t as scary as a hippo.

If you were to do a second series of Fierce, where would you like to go?

Botswana is fantastic. We didn’t get there this time, but the Okavango Delta in Botswana is an absolute hotspot for wildlife. We didn’t actually go to the Amazon, we went to Guyana, which is to the North of the Amazon but it’s not actually in the Amazon Basin itself. We didn’t do anything north of Mexico, so we didn’t do anything in Alaska, which is probably the world’s greatest wildlife hotspot. There is an endless list of places we could go to.

We love a good road thriller, where unsuspecting travellers discover they aren’t truly alone in the vast, isolated and smouldering expanses of the American desert – think titles like 1986’s The Hitcher, or 1997’s Breakdown. There’s something… read more

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We love a good road thriller,where unsuspecting travellers discover they aren’t truly alone in the vast, isolated and smouldering expanses of the American desert – think titles like 1986’s The Hitcher, or 1997’s Breakdown. There’s something about the unique psychological landscape of these films that sees their heart-racing, bone-chilling effects playing on our minds long beyond their hour-and-a-half durations. Luckily, we remind ourselves, we’re safe and comfortable in our homes, at a sheltered distance from the types of weirdos encountered in these remote settings. But what if the danger of the desert followed you home?

From William Monahan, the Oscar-winning writer of The Departed,Mojavedelivers this unsettling twist on the road thriller genre. Garrett Hedlund of TRON: Legacy fame plays Thomas, a troubled, almost suicidal artist who has an ominous encounter in the desert with a homicidal, chameleon-like drifter. Said drifter is Jack, played by the sensational Oscar Isaac of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and A Most Violent Year, who proceeds to follow Thomas back to his privileged L.A. domain, attempting to infiltrate and destroy his seemingly-perfect life.

Here’s our exclusive conversation with William Monahan, Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac about their experience of making the dark new thriller, which also stars Mark Wahlberg and Walton Goggins.

Mojave densely weaves together a number of different ideas via its two central characters, Tom and Jack. How would you describe these two men?

Garrett Hedlund: [I play] a guy named Tom who’s ultimately driven mad. He goes out to the desert, needing to get away, and ends up going crazy, but also really showing us who he is. Murders are committed. He comes back to L.A., and that’s really where the story starts. For the first chunk of the script, there’s a guy that you know nothing about. No words are really said. Then finally a third of a way into the film you start to unpeel the layers and realise who this person really is.

Oscar Isaac: I play the role of Jack, who’s a desert rat, psycho killer in the Mojave Desert. He’s a brilliant man with a lot of potential as a writer, but something went askew at some point in his brain, and so he’s just isolated himself from humanity.

William Monahan: Jack is an artist who’s chosen to live in the desert and has also expanded into being a homicidal maniac. The camp itself – including the Airstream he lives in – is a complete expression of his personality and the polymathic nature of his talents. [His home] indicates that Tom is actually his double, so to speak. Someone who if in the script, ‘women and the weather’ had gone a different way, could’ve been in Tom’s position, whereas Tom could’ve been in his.

None of us ever really conquers our worse half, it’s always there. There’s a line in a scene where Jack asks Tom, ‘Do you believe in the duality of man?’ and Tom replies, ‘No, I believe in infinite complexity’. That’s more or less where I come down on it as well. The thing about Mojave is it is a film of ambiguities. There is a bit of a question about who the bad guy is, but we’re all the good guy, and we’re all the bad guy.

The interaction of the desert setting with Tom’s return to Hollywood is something we haven’t really seen before. Can you tell us more about your interpretation of it?

Garrett Hedlund: Oscar and I were sitting down at my place after wrap one night, and I broke down to him what I thought it was in my mind; a guy goes out to the desert to kill the devil inside, and ends up bringing him back with him. Anyone that’s in the [film] industry will know what drove this guy to start off at page one of the script driving at 100mph out into the desert.

William Monahan: The most important thing about the L.A. segments is that no one really has anything. Nobody’s really settled in L.A. – they don’t know what they’re doing or why they’re there. They live in unfurnished houses, and there’s a continual existential crisis in every direction.

What is your own relationship with the desert as a psychological space?

William Monahan: The desert’s always appealed to me, and the idea for Mojave came about ten years ago when I was actually sick of the film industry. I took a 4×4 vehicle and went out into the middle of the Alkali Lake, that we have in the film, and laid back on the hood of the car exactly as Tom does in the movie. But then I tilted my hat to the side and looked at the sun flaring behind the mountains and thought ‘My God! That’s a camera position’. So my attempt to get away from the film industry ended up being Mojave.

Garrett Hedlund: You have to get the hell away once in a while and if you don’t it could be damaging for the soul and to others. And that’s exactly what Tom is going through at this moment. He’s very successful, but he doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t need it and that’s what you get to see. So Tom blasts out to the desert and once he’s out there – living the moments that you would find ideal – it’s what he went out there for: driving fast, get wasted, camp up, look up at the stars and realise what you want to appreciate in life and what you haven’t appreciated.

All of this comes into play piece by piece throughout the film. You realise he might not be a great guy to start with – or be a great guy by the end of it – but you tend to feel for him just because of the degree of mental torture. He ends up coming across a guy that’s a genius – very much an intellectual doppelgänger of himself – who speaks the same language in a very specific way. But they’re so opposite in terms of where that knowledge got them to in their lives.

Tom and Jack have such an interesting connection with one another. It’s fiercely opposing, yet almost weirdly symbiotic. What was it like playing off of Oscar?

Garrett Hedlund: Oscar is fantastic, it’s the second film we’ve done together [following Inside Llewyn Davis]. We’ve been great buddies for the last five years, so we’ve really been looking for something to do together and it’s been great to be able to have this as a situation – a Bill Monahan script. One of the best things about it is we’re such good friends, playing psychological enemies, but at the same time just two guys you really want to be best friends. At the end of the film when he says, ‘We’re gonna have a drink’, honestly you could do a whole film the two of us sitting at a table having a drink. With Bill’s writing, it’d be a dream situation for me.

What was it like working with William Monahan?

Oscar Isaac: Bill’s great, he’s just a genius writer. There’s very few movies nowadays that allow for this kind of language to come out of characters mouths. What I could compare it to really is theatre, but even in theatre you can’t compare it to the classics with such poetry.

Garrett Hedlund: Working with Bill has been incredible to be honest, I’ve always been such a fan of his work. He’s such a genius, he’s one of the smartest people I’ve met, honestly. The analogies he pulls out the box to describe these particular situations, it can be mythological or biblical or it could simply be a scene for Lawrence of Arabia. That’s where the inspiration came for this particular shot or this particular moment. That’s what he wants to capture and the communication is so unique. I feel I understand it completely, and I love it. Hands down one of the smartest people I’ve met.

It’s interesting seeing a film that explores what it’s like to be a filmmaker. How did you first fall in love with film?

William Monahan: I was actually a filmmaker before I was anything else. I was always in love with film. There was a moment when I was watching Lawrence of Arabia and it struck me that someone had written it. A couple of day’s later after being thunderstruck by Lawrence of Arabia I discovered a copy of Dylan Thomas’ screenplay for the Doctor and the Devils. So that was the first screenplay I ever read and that was what I worked off of. The screenplay has first of all to be good reading, it has to be a selling tool to get the actors, because if you don’t have the actors, you don’t have a movie.

Signature Entertainment presents Mojave at cinemas and on demandfrom Friday March 25th.

INTERVIEW: Tom Hollander on his role in ITV period drama Doctor Thorne

Following our interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes about his latest output for ITV, the three-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne, we had the pleasure of catching up with the new mini-series’… read more

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INTERVIEW: Tom Hollander on his role in ITV period drama Doctor Thorne

Following our interview with Downton Abbeycreator Julian Fellowes about his latest output for ITV, the three-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne, we had the pleasure of catching up with the new mini-series’ leading man Tom Hollander to speak about his titular role. We’d give you a brief introduction to the character of Doctor Thomas Thorne and the gist of the show’s plot, but Hollander was pretty keen to do this himself. And who better to do so?

“He’s a decent sort”, the Rev actor explains. “He’s a doctor who’s, in a way, got too many friends, and he has to keep them all happy. But chiefly he’s got a niece whom he lives with and whom he loves very much. Her birth was in those times unstable, and in some ways uncreditable, because she was a ‘bastard’, and because her father died. She is, by the standards of the day, unsuitable to marry the man that she loves. I’m just telling you the plot, aren’t I? Anyway, Doctor Thorne is a quiet chap, but he’s roused to anger every so often. And he’s morally courageous – he tends to do the right by people – sometimes to his own detriment. That’s the way I’d describe him”.

Julian Fellowes had said to me that Thorne is quite a complex hero to play, as the other characters around him are the ones pushing the narrative; he merely responds. What does Tom think about this?

“Well, he’s a still centre, around which some quite colourful characters circulate”, he argues. “I loved playing him, because it was a part I hadn’t played before; he’s a listener, but also a hero. He’s not selfish, and its not his own agenda that he’s servicing. So that’s actually quite unusual to play. One seems to play characters that are more concerned with getting something, but his concern is for everyone else, and chiefly for Mary”.

TOM HOLLANDER as Doctor Thorne and STEFANIE MARTINI as Mary Thorne.

As an actor who’s been picking up some pretty high profile roles of late (in titles such as The Night Manager, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, to name a couple), I ask Hollander was attracted him to this particular project:

“Well, it was everything that I’ve described”, he tells me. “It was because this seemed to be a straight, heroic, leading man type, which I hadn’t done before. I’ve played the lead, but often in a comically undercut way, or something quirky – I’m thinking of In the Loop, or Rev. And in In The Night Manager I’m kind of Odd Job. So this is a Victorian, virtuous hero. That for me was a departure”.

Speaking of departures, it’s nice seeing an adaptation of nineteenth century writing that isn’t as well known as Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. Hollander agrees:

“I think that it’ll be good for the audience”, he says. “Trollope is not like Dickens, and he’s not like Austen. He’s his own thing, and it’s more nuanced than those [writers]. Dickensian characters are all quite extreme. There’s always a good young person and then lots of broadly drawn, brilliant character parts around them. This has an element of that, but really it’s a more middle class story. People seem to be held in whatever bit of the class structure they’ve been born into, and they’re negotiating their way through it, and Doctor Thorne is managing everybody’s fate somehow”.

I ask Tom what it was like working with veteran actor Ian McShane:

“It was fun”, he replies. “He’s a very powerful personality. And he’s brilliant in it, isn’t he? It was exciting, we were very lucky that he was in it”.

And he was also in Pirates of the Caribbean, if not the same one as Hollander…

“And he was a pirate, and I was a sort of policeman!” he laughs. “We did talk about it on set, though. Funny!”

The conversation turns to the fresh new faces on the cast. Was it nice for Tom to watch the young talent of Stefanie Martini and Harry Richardson, who play Mary Thorne and Frank Gresham, blossoming on set, I ask?

“Yes, what was fun for me was the fact that there were so many young actors in it who are just starting out”, he tells me. “I got to see the sheer fun of it from their point of view; of the costumes, the locations, and the romance of all of that. For Harry Richardson and Stefanie Martini, it was practically their first job. It wasn’t actually, but it almost their first job. So they were in a state of wonderment about it all, which made me realise quite what a privilege it is to be doing those things”.

Speaking of the costumes, the locations and the romance… Does Tom like watching period dramas in his downtime? What does he think of their resurgence in popularity over the past decade or so?

“I don’t watch that much of anything, but yeah, I like watching them, if it’s a good story”, he explains. “I did actually really enjoy Downton. But I feel like period drama’s always been popular. When I was a kid, Poldark was on, and now it’s on again. Pride and Prejudice was on in the ‘80s, then it was on again, and then I was in another version. They’re lovely, they’re popular, people like them”.

Did Hollander read Trollope’s book of Doctor Thorne in preparation for the role?

“I didn’t, no”, he says without hesitation, before following up with: “Well, I’d read the stuff about Doctor Thorne’s character, but I didn’t read the whole book, no”.

Because it’s about 700 pages?

“It’s not that long!” he protests. “It’s just that sometimes if you read the book you find that the person who’s adapted it has done something completely different from what’s in the original, which is confusing. I always think my job is to inhabit the character that’s been written in the script, but I did look at the book just to check I wasn’t going wildly off piece”.

Speaking of the writer’s interpretation, I ask whether there was much flexibility for Tom as an actor to improvise on Fellowes’s writing.

“Well he’s certainly up for a chat”, he explains. “Gosford Park [which Hollander and Fellowes worked together on] we improvised some of, but that’s because it was Robert Altman, and that’s what he does. With this one, if you had a notion about it, then Julian was very collaborative. But it was a more formal thing; you wouldn’t want to change it on the day. But in advance, there were a couple of moments where I suggested things weeks before and he was amenable. You need to say ‘what if I…’, ‘can I do this?’, and he’ll either say no or yes”.

And is that process of contribution important to Tom as an actor?

“It’s certainly more enjoyable if it’s collaborative, but I think that’s true for every profession in the industry”, he elaborates. “It needs to be give and take. It’s much more fun if you get to express your ideas, but you also have to allow yourself to be discreet”.

So, what’s next on the agenda for Tom Hollander?

“I’m doing something called Taboo with Tom Hardy”, he teases. “That’s actually the same period as this, and could not be more different. Dark and broody and spooky and frightening. And there’s a film of Tulip Fever which is coming out any minute now. Have you seen any adverts for that on the side of a bus? I certainly haven’t. Oh, and Jungle Book: Origins. That was great fun. I should imagine that will be out in a year or something. I was a hyena in that. Also it’s motion capture, which is then animated by CGI, so you’re very free. You can really just do anything you want, and they’ll use it if they want to, or otherwise they won’t”.

Hot off the heels of international sensation Downton Abbey coming to an end, the show’s ever flamboyant, ever erudite, and ever entertaining creator, Julian Fellowes, has penned another period… read more

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Hot off the heels of international sensation Downton Abbey coming to an end, the show’s ever flamboyant, ever erudite, and ever entertaining creator, Julian Fellowes, has penned another period piece for ITV which is sure to enchant fans of the prior show. Adapted from the 1858 Anthony Trollope novel of the same name, the new three-part drama starring Tom Hollander, Rebecca Front and Ian McShane is Doctor Thorne.

Doctor Thorne tells the story of Dr. Thomas Thorne (Hollander), who lives in the village of Greshamsbury with his beautiful young niece Mary (newcomer Stefanie Martini) – a girl of illegitimate pedigree and no fortune, who is therefore considered unworthy of marriage to the man she loves, the handsome young Frank Gresham (Harry Richardson). Meanwhile, the eminent Gresham family is in dire financial straits itself after years of the estate’s mismanagement, making matriarch Arabella Gresham (Front) determined to secure a wealthy marriage for her son.

We had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Julian Fellowes and the cast of Doctor Thorne about their delightful mini series over tea and biscuits at a London hotel. The first of three interview features, here’s what Fellowes had to tell us about Downton, wealth, access to education, and, of course, Doctor Thorne.

“Period drama has an apparently reassuring view of a society that seems calm compared to our own. In troubled times there is often a desire to go back to some mythical period in the past where everything was simpler” – Julian Fellowes

Photo by Tim O’Sullivan

Knowing that he’s been a big fan of Trollope’s work ever since his school days, I get our interview rolling by asking Julian how the project came about.

“Our producers Chris Kelly and Ted Chiles had the idea of doing Doctor Thorne for television. Wanting for a long time to remind people that we didn’t have to have the hundredth version of Pride and Prejudice, that there were other nineteenth century novelists out there, it just seemed a good idea”, Fellowes explains.

Having created the world of Downton Abbey from his own imagination, how did Julian find the process of adapting Doctor Thorne – following a story not only written by someone else, but one that’s also very dear to his heart?

“All adaptation is a process of filleting. You have to try and decide on the key scenes, and the moments everyone loves and remembers. Like chucking the dictionary out of the carriage as she drives away from school [Becky Sharp in the opening to Thackeray’s Vanity Fair]; you’ve just got to find which of those moments are in this particular book.

“On the whole, Trollope translates pretty naturally to a visual or dramatised version of his work, because he writes such believable dialogue. There are some nineteenth century novelists whose dialogue does not, let’s say, ‘bounce off the page’, but his does. Many of the scenes are really nine tenths Trollope and one tenth me. I think he is a natural for adaptation, and I hope the world agrees with me”, Julian gushes.

This of course leads me to ask him about the recent resurgence of English period drama, contributed to in large part by his Downton Abbey. Why does Julian think the genre has come back in such a huge way over the past decade or so?

“What period has is anapparently reassuring view of a society that seems quite calm compared to our own. You see in troubled times – and I think we’re living in reasonably troubled times – that there is often a desire to go back to some slightly mythical period in the past where everything was simpler … They believed in a kind of order that we don’t particularly believe in – they lived by rules that we have abandoned. The other thing of course is that you can enjoy an historical period, but you’re not living it! It looks charming, but you don’t have to get up at 5am and clean the grates. Or if you’re upstairs, you don’t have to change your clothes five times a day, and sit waiting for something to happen”, he says.

I want to know how the casting of Tom Hollander as the show’s titular hero came about. Did Julian have the Rev actor in mind during the writing process?

“I can’t remember when Tom first came up; it was while I was still writing it, I think. He did strike me as perfect, because it’s a difficult part. In a way, [he is] this sort of pillar of strength at the centre of proceedings, but everyone else is driving the narrative.

“[He’s] mainly responding all the time. And yet [he has] to be this figure of probity and authority, so that even Lady Arabella (Rebecca Front) is uncomfortable when she’s not on good terms with him; she tries to manoeuvre him back into the fold. For that to work, you need someone of great strength, because otherwise you just think ‘why would she bother with him? I don’t believe this’. Tom’s got that sort of authority, but also of course he’s very funny. So you have this light dusting of wit over everything. I think he’s marvellous in the role. Really marvellous”.

“God knows I’ve got nothing against gentlemen actors … But I like a broad spectrum, because I think you’ve got more chance of representing the society in which we live [that way]. I do think we have to look at that”

How about the newcomers? Was it nice to watch the young talent of Stefanie Martini and Harry Richardson, who play Mary Thorne and Frank Gresham, blossoming on set?

“Oh yes, I love that”, Fellowes coos. “I love the fact that they have no baggage, they come clean, and nobody thinks ‘oh, I thought she was better in Robin Hood’! All you know is that [Martini] is Mary Thorne – you don’t have any pre-knowledge. Once they become stars, you start going through their lives with them, but with new faces, you don’t have any of that. It’s completely fresh. And I like seeing the next generation – or rather three generations down(!) – get going.

“[Acting] is a tough profession, and it’s hard to get money for training. In the old days when I was at university, there was a system where everyone was allowed three years of [funded] further education, and you might go to somewhere like Cambridge as I did, or you might go to a drama school. They were both covered. So of course you had a much wider group of people applying. Now it’s much more complicated than that, and I think it is a pity.

“God knows I’ve got nothing against gentlemen actors – good luck to them all! But I like a broad spectrum, because I think you’ve got more chance of representing the society in which we live [that way]. I do think we have to look at that. But anyway, I liked it when the young kids at the end of Downton all shot off with great contracts to do series and movies and plays and God knows what. I think it’s great!” says Fellowes.

I had all that hassle about whether Edith was going to be happy at the end of Downton. One Tweet said “If Edith doesn’t have a happy ending, Julian Fellowes had better sleep with one eye open!”

Judging by the optimistic conclusion of Downton Abbey, Fellowes seems to be rather a fan of the happy ending. Does he agree, and can we expect similar from Doctor Thorne?

“I like happy endings, but I don’t have to have a happy ending. I’m thinking of Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Hardy – a society of which I am the President – for example. But I think an unhappy ending can be unfair when you’ve followed characters for a long time. It doesn’t mean that everything in the story has to be marvellous, and sad things can happen; sad things happen in this. But ultimately, I think audiences earn a happy ending.

“I had all that hassle about whether Edith was going to be happy at the end of Downton. God, I can’t tell you! There was one Tweet I rather liked, which said “If Edith doesn’t have a happy ending, Julian Fellowes had better sleep with one eye open”! Not that I of course was affected by that… But I knew what they meant. We’d gone for six years following this wretched woman being let down at every turn, and you just thought ‘give the girl a break’! I felt that as much as anyone else, really”, he laughs.

So back to Doctor Thorne; what elements of the story, written almost 160 years ago, does Julian believe will resonate with today’s audience?

“I think Trollope’s themes are very modern, actually”, explains Fellowes. “I wouldn’t quite say he has a jaundiced view of [nineteenth century] society, but he certainly has a very realistic one. He’s not in love with it in any way – not even in Dickens’s sort of evil glamour. Trollope’s very practical, and understands that what it comes down to is money – nobody makes a convincing aristocrat without any money! You find that strand in his books; this pragmatism that is underneath the vanity of the characters. They’re sort of hard knocks about life. [Trollope] understands that his own society was a cruel society.

“Nowadays we live in a tough world, and we have this strange, almost contradictory imperative; we love the rich, we want to be rich, but we hate them! That doesn’t really come together as a philosophy, but nevertheless, that is who we are. You also find that curious dichotomy in Trollope. He understands that money is the battery, the petrol of the whole thing. He’s very undecided about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. In a way you sense that he would’ve approved of a more American society at that time, which was much more fluid than Britain, and would remain so.

“There is never a moment in this novel where it’s not clear that Thorne [a penniless doctor] is a better man than both Gresham and Scatcherd [wealthy estate owners]. Which of course in the Nineteenth Century was quite… not daring, exactly, but it wasn’t a Victorian view. Even Jane Austen doesn’t really challenge the social audience. She makes fun of people like Lady Catherine, but there’s never a moment where she questions whether or not it’s a good thing to end up at Mansfield Park. Whereas Trollope is much more ambivalent, and I think that is more modern”.

Stay tuned for our interviews with cast members Tom Hollander and Rebecca Front, who play the titular Doctor Thorne and Lady Arabella Gresham respectively.

NTAs SPECIAL: Our interview with Phillip Schofield

One of our favourite people to catch up with on the red carpet of last night’s 21st annual National Television Awards was This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield. Here’s what ol’ Schofe had to tell… read more

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NTAs SPECIAL: Our interview with Phillip Schofield

One of our favourite people to catch up with on the red carpet of last night’s 21st annual National Television Awards was This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield. Here’s what ol’ Schofe had to tell us about everything from bondage to that rumoured rift between he and fellow anchor Holly Willoughby. Big congratulations to Phillip and the whole team of ThisMorning, who went on to win this year’s NTA for best live magazine show.

TVDaily: Hey Phillip! How do you feel?

Phillip Schofield: Great! It’s a lovely event for all of us. We all come down on the boat; a whole bunch of us have come down. But they leave you here, they don’t take you home, so we’re all walking back.

*Billy Connelly interrupts to say hi*

Oh – that’s quite nice when Billy Connelly comes by and says he’s just watched you this morning!

TVD: How do you feel about the sex stuff you cover on This Morning?

PS: Oh, it’s absolutely fine! I’m unshockable – can’t be shocked, can’t be surprised… We’ve done it all! Then again there’s nothing that we really do that Richard and Judy weren’t pushing the boundaries of years ago. There is a boundary that we constantly push. Also, we don’t do much of it; that’s the thing. Normally there’s a reason. For example, the whole bondage thing that we did that caused such a furore was all because of Fifty Shades of Grey. So there’s a reason to do it. We haven’t done it for months, but we’re always on the lookout for a good idea!

TVD: Do you ever have mornings where you’re just not in the mood to do the show?

PS: Well Holly and I have a long gossip in the makeup room beforehand, so by the time we get into the studio we’ve gone through everything – what happened the night before, what you’ve done, what’s annoying you, what’s gone wrong, what’s gone right, so we’ve done all of that anyway.

TVD: So how do you respond to rumours about a rift between you and Holly?

PS: I don’t know where it comes from! It’s hilarious! It’s just nonsense made up, and just irrelevant to us. After we’ve done This Morning we put our next lunch in the diary, the two of us go out, and we have a good ol’ goss’ and a laugh. My wife and Holly’s husband Dan get on, and everyone gets on as a foursome. It’s much more interesting if people say there’s a rift, but there really isn’t.

TVD: Did you ever predict your career would go in this direction?

PS: Well, you always think you’re lucky… It’s a lucky thing to be doing, and I never forget how lucky I am to be doing it. I’m lucky to have great shows, and great people that I work with, and I still enjoy my job after doing it for the amount of time that I’ve been doing it; I still love getting up in the morning and getting into work… We just last night shot the first in a new series of You’re Back in the Room, so we’re doing more of those, and it’s all lovely! It keeps me entertained, and interested, and sharp and bright, so I love it!

TVD: How much longer do you think you’ll be doing This Morning for?

PS: I’ll know when the time is right. Hopefully I’ve always known when the time is right…

TVD: Hopefully not for a while longer, as we love watching you every morning! Thanks Phillip!